Sunrise in a Garden of Love & Evil (16 page)

He parked behind Plato's old Chevy pickup and composed himself. Ophelia's neighbor waited in the doorway, drawn and desperately uneasy.

"I appreciate your agreeing to talk to me here, Officer O'Toole," he said. He stood back to let Gideon into a room full of baskets.

Really, really full. All over the walls, ovals and rounds mostly, with the occasional rectangle or square to break the monotony. Piles of baskets nested together, crammed against the ceiling, almost blocking the narrow entry to the bedroom hall. Delicate and intricate, thick and rustic, tall hampers, squat picnic baskets with hinged lids: every available surface was covered with baskets, except the kitchen table and one wooden chair. Tangles of green wisteria hung across the table, and beside them lay a yellow utility knife.

Plato tenderly removed a pile of baskets from the other kitchen chair and balanced them on the end of the counter. "Please sit down." He stood rigid, hands twining together, even when Gideon took a seat.

"Relax, Mr. Lavoie. I didn't come to give you a hard time."

"I can't afford to lose my job," Plato said, clasping and unclasping his hands. "Even in Bayou Gavotte, there are plenty of people who wouldn't be able to forgive my oddities. But I'm a good pharmacist. I don't make mistakes. I double-check everything. I'm scrupulously careful about contraindications. My oddities have no effect whatsoever on my performance at work."

"Mr. Lavoie, I don't question your competence. Your lifestyle is your business, not mine. Consider this a friendly conversation about the safety of Ophelia Beliveau."

Plato's face darkened to rust. "I may be a basket case, but I've never done anything--
anything
--to hurt Ophelia."

"I'm not suggesting you have. Please sit, Mr. Lavoie." When the man did, fidgeting helplessly, wringing his hands in his lap, the poor bastard, Gideon added, "Feel free to work while we talk. You weave your baskets from wisteria?"

Plato picked up his utility knife and a strip of wisteria, tearing off the leaves in long, ragged strokes. "Some of them. In the spring mostly, when it's green and easy to work with." The strokes grew smoother.

Gideon sat back. "Mr. Lavoie, someone has targeted Ms. Beliveau with some nasty attacks. A dead cat was hung on her door several days ago. Her garden was vandalized. Today, a badly beaten corpse was planted in her truck."

The color in Plato's cheeks ebbed. "Donnie told me about the cat and the garden, but...Whose body?"

"It hasn't been identified yet. Willy Wyler has admitted to the vandalism, and he's given a plausible explanation for his fit of rage. Both he and Mr. Donaldson deny any knowledge of the cat, and although I haven't spoken to Mrs. Wyler, it seems unlikely she was involved."

Plato let out a breath of dry laughter. "Lisa Wyler soil her lily-white hands touching a dead cat?" He pushed the leaves onto the floor and set the cleaned vine carefully aside. "It doesn't fit her obsession."

"Which is?"

"Never to be trailer trash again. She had an impoverished childhood, and what with Willy going down the tubes lately with too much drugs and alcohol, she's likely to end up broke in her old age, too."

"Are you being blackmailed, Mr. Lavoie?" Gideon asked the question without preamble, but Plato didn't seem surprised.

"Most of my paycheck," he said. "It's been going on for years. I used to think it was someone I'd known a long time ago, because the money went to various mail boxes in New Orleans, but lately I've had to send it to a local shop." He selected another vine. "And no, I haven't reported it to the police. I don't need money, but I do need my job. I need structure in my life. It's what keeps me sane."

Gideon didn't laugh. "Don't send another payment without first checking with me. We know about your blackmailer; he's targeted quite a few people. We'll get him before long, and you'll be a free man again."

Plato relaxed even more. "I suppose you want to know if I've seen anything that would help you. Unfortunately, I haven't. Ophelia's up and out at dawn and comes home in the early afternoon, and I'm asleep most of the time she's gone. That way--"

Gideon waited, and Plato twisted his hands together, and Gideon took pity. "You have an hour or two to watch her before you go to work."

"I just look." Plato's expression was a plea for understanding. "That's all I do. I spend my free evenings at the club, but she hardly ever goes there anymore. Wasn't she amazing last night? Such beauty, such flashing eyes! And that whip! She's never carried one like that before." His face drooped. "I wish she'd exert her power over me more often."

"Maybe you should consider patronizing a dominatrix, Mr. Lavoie," Gideon said, "or join one of the BDSM clubs. Find someone looking for a good bottom."

"I'm not into
bondage
," Plato said distastefully. He picked up his knife and got back to work. "I'm a devotee. It was his fault, you know."

Gideon leaned back in the chair. "What was whose fault?"

"That Johnny fellow. He's the reason she left the club for good. She could handle all the other fools, but Johnny was crazy. You were there last night. You heard. If he'd really loved Ophelia, he would have been faithful to her."

"He was a married man," Gideon said. "What about being faithful to his wife?"

"It's different with a supernatural being," Plato said. "Ophelia's a goddess." Something must have shown on Gideon's face, for Plato gave him a pitying look. "Didn't you know? Goddesses require allegiance far above and beyond what ordinary people merit. These baskets"--he swept the knife in a grand gesture--"are my offerings. Don't you see? They're all
O
for Ophelia. Ovals and rounds, mostly, but even the squares and rectangles are stylized
O
s."

Christ.

"She's all I think about," Plato said, "so of course it shows in my offerings." He set the next clean vine by the others and sent another pile of leaves to the floor. "Worshippers have to be patient and submissive, like me."

"And Johnny wasn't?"

"Johnny wanted to have sex with her. That tawdry exotic dancer wanted to sleep with a goddess. Can you imagine the gall?" He chose another length of wisteria.

"But he didn't get her."

"No one does. She's above us all." He ran his eyes and hands up and down the vine. "Then one day he drove off in his fancy car and we never saw him again."

Huh. Something niggled at Gideon's brain. It felt like instinct. Or maybe just crap.

"No loyalty at all," Plato said. "No staying power. What's your obsession?"

Gideon eyed him. "Mine?"

"Everybody has obsessions, just some are considered more normal than others. Is it truth and justice? Your reputation as a cop? Or is it Ophelia Beliveau?"

"I can't afford an obsession at the moment," Gideon said. "I'm working a murder case."

"Obsessions don't just step aside, detective. If you don't acknowledge their power, they put you in your place, often in highly unpleasant ways."

"I'm used to dealing with unpleasantness," Gideon said. "Do you have any idea who might have a grudge against Ms. Beliveau?"

Plato methodically stripped another vine, and his response was both evasive and chilling. "A goddess has many enemies, but Ophelia knows I'll be watching her place. He'll make a false move, and I'll be the one to see it. You and a thousand other men may obsess over her, but my loyalty is what will count in the end."

C
HAPTER
F
IFTEEN

"Oh, crap," Ophelia said, staring at the lonely figure waiting on her porch.

"Kid's upset about something," Jabez said from his post in the sycamore. "Didn't want to scare her away, so I kept out of sight."

"Thanks," Ophelia said. Gretchen sat up, thumping her tail gently against the car seat.

"Bit of a throw-down two doors down."

"Willy's drunk again, I suppose. Hopefully that's all."

"Next-door neighbor brought the girl a coffee, then went to break up the fight."

Joanna Wyler slumped under the light on Ophelia's tiny porch. Insects flitted around her, and she scratched at her arms.
Next, her parents will say I gave her West Nile.
Ophelia moved the truck forward and parked at the top of her drive. Gretchen burst out and bounded to the porch to say hello.

Ophelia retrieved a mosquito coil and a lighter from a box under the stairs and set the coil on the porch rail. She lit it. "Have your parents been arguing?"

Joanna sniffled and nodded. Gretchen licked the tear tracks off her face.

Ophelia sat down and patted the step beside her. "I don't know what to do with you, sweetie. You're not supposed to come here anymore."

Joanna burst into loud sobs. "Ophelia, I'm sorry! Please don't hate me!"

"I don't hate you." She motioned the girl forward, and this time Joanna obeyed.
What the hell,
thought Ophelia,
I have a witness.
She put an arm around Joanna's shoulders and gave her a squeeze, then let go and brought her hand back around to scratch at Gretchen's ears. "However, I'm not happy about being accused of taking dirty pictures."

"I'm sorry!" Joanna rooted in her pocket and passed a tattered tissue across her nose. "I never said that, I promise. My parents just...just decided it must be you, because some pictures that weren't supposed to be there came back in one of the envelopes you dropped off for them at the print and photo shop. They figured you got things mixed up."

"So why didn't you tell your parents it wasn't me?"

"I couldn't think of anything else to say," Joanna groaned.

"How about the truth?"

"I can't tell the truth!" Joanna wagged her head back and forth. "Zelda's right, I'm a hopeless wimp. My life is so over!"

Drama queen,
thought Ophelia uncharitably, and encountered a look from Gretchen.
All right, all right, but
I've
got a good reason. All right again, maybe Joanna has, too.
"Zelda called you that?"

"No," Joanna said miserably, "but that's what she was thinking." She blew her nose into the soggy tissue. "Zelda said I can't be a wimp if I want to hang with her."

"That's Zelda's way of saying she likes you. Her friendship challenge, so to speak."

"Zelda's so cool. But I can't tell. I just can't."

"Are you scared of someone? Is somebody threatening you?"

"No," Joanna said sullenly.

Two doors down, the screen door slammed open and shut. "Joanna!" Lisa Wyler's voice rose in a wail that showed clearly whose mother she was.

Ophelia stood up, and so did Joanna, to see Lisa stomping across the lawn. The door of the Colonial opened again and Willy Wyler stumbled down the steps, howling obscenities, followed by Donnie Donaldson.

Joanna moaned. "I can't
stand
my father! He's so
embarrassing
. He gets so
stupid
when he's drunk."

"He'll get sober in a big hurry." Ophelia unlocked the door of her trailer, flicked on the spotlight, which illumined the top end of the drive, and came out a few seconds later with a pellet rifle and some tissues. She handed the tissues to Joanna, who gaped at the rifle with frightened eyes. "Don't worry, I won't shoot him. If he won't stop for me, he'll stop for my backup. You might want to meet Jabez so you don't freak out."

On cue, her protector appeared from nowhere. Joanna clapped a hand over her mouth to stifle a shriek. Jabez nodded and vanished into the shadows beside Constantine's truck.

Willy lumbered bearlike across the ditch at the edge of Ophelia's property, Lisa babbling hysterically beside him, and now Donnie Donaldson hustled behind, protesting. "Come on now, Willy, don't get all het up."

"Goddamn bitch touching my little girl, lu-lu-luring her out at midnight!"

Lisa Wyler's face contorted. "Joanna, baby, are you okay? Did she hurt you?"

Joanna stepped down onto the drive. "Mom, I'm fine!"

Donnie put a hand on Wyler's arm. "Come on now, Willy, Ophelia didn't do no luring. She just got home, for chrissake."

"Made a--a--
'ppointment
to lure her." Willy knocked Donnie's hand away and crashed across the mud that had once been Ophelia's vegetable patch. But when the rifle in Ophelia's hands veered in his direction, he staggered and stopped dead.

Lisa halted behind her husband and peered around his bulky form. "Joanna, honey, you've been crying! Come away from that evil woman. What she did was wrong, and she'll pay for it. You're just an innocent baby."

"It wasn't Ophelia," Joanna said, her lip wobbling. "She didn't take those pictures."

Lisa glared. "There's no call for you to lie! We're here. She can't do anything to you now."

"I'm not lying!" Joanna sniffled. "Ophelia didn't do anything, I swear!"

"Okay then," Willy bellowed. "Who did?"

Silence dropped into the pool of light on the drive, and all eyes focused on Joanna. She opened her mouth, but only a squeak came out.

"Ophelia did it!" Lisa spat. "For years she sucked up to us and pretended to be nice, and it was all part of her evil plan to corrupt my baby's mind and body. And now she's controlling her with threats! She has her in her thrall!"

Willy gave an exasperated snort. "Shut up, Lisa! Let the girl talk!"

"You shut up!" Lisa hurled back. "No-good, drunken has-been! Can't even protect your own daughters!"

"Gotta know who to protect them from first!"

Lisa stomped up to her husband; they stood nose to nose. "Can't even make enough money to keep them in house and home!"

"Come now, Lisa," Donnie said. "Calm down."

Lisa rounded on Donnie with a stream of curses. "If you were really Willy's friend, you wouldn't lend him money for booze. He's drinking the house out from under us!"

"If you're so freaking worried about the freaking house, get a job!" Willy turned from his wife to his daughter. "Who took the pictures, Joanna?"

Joanna erupted into noisy sobbing. "I can't tell you! I'll die before I tell!" She covered her face with her hands. "Torture me if you want, boil me in oil, all I can hope for is to die!"

Willy threw his hands up in the air. Ophelia avoided Gretchen's eyes. The damn dog might think this was hysterically funny, but her own head had begun to throb.

The stalemate was interrupted by low, eerie laughter.

"Who's that?" Lisa bleated. "Who's laughing?"

Donnie Donaldson figured it out first. Jabez glided into the light, and Lisa screamed. Joanna rolled her eyes, and Willy looked just plain scared.

"Party's over," Jabez said. "Everybody go home." He leaned nonchalantly against Ophelia's truck and waited.

This time, Willy made no protest against Donnie's guiding hand. Lisa skittered forward and clamped her fingers around Joanna's arm. "Sweet baby, let's get you away from this place." She marched her daughter across the mud. "Once we get you safe, we'll call the cops and you can tell them all about what that evil woman did to you!"

"She didn't do anything!" Joanna hollered. "I won't accuse Ophelia, because it's not true. Kick me out in the street if you want, dump me in a ditch!"

"Cop's already here," Jabez said. "Good friend of mine. He'd be happy to set you straight." He waved as a car came out of the driveway across the road.

Lisa glared at him and dragged Joanna away. Donnie prodded Willy along behind.

Ophelia watched Gideon's car pull into the end of her drive and stop. "Why has that goddamned cop been bothering Plato?" she asked.

Jabez shrugged. "Better ask him."

"Not a chance," Ophelia replied. "Tell him he's not wanted here."

At the bottom of the drive, Jabez grinned. "She's pissed at you, man."

"Nowhere near as pissed off as I am at her," Gideon replied. "I take it I'm not needed?" The depressed little party had almost reached the big Colonial house.

"I've got it covered." Jabez adopted a belligerent note. "I'd like to teach her lunatic neighbors a lesson, but knowing Ophelia, she'll say no way. Kid mighta confessed who took some dirty pics, too, but the parents showed up."

Gideon fled back to town, burning rubber as he left Ophelia's drive, shaking the dust of her off his wheels and the thought of her, cold and bright in the porch light, from his mind. He sort of didn't think of her during the rest of the night as the crime-scene crew worked the print and photo shop and the apartment, and he set her aside while he questioned the ordinarily respectable citizen he had found stumbling through the shop in the dark. He made phone calls and verified his alibi, and eventually let the man go. Shortly before dawn he sped past Ophelia's again on the way home for a shower and an hour's sleep, allowing himself a glance at her dark and silent house, the glance of a cop who had a job to do, not that of a former would-be lover.

He'd been such a jerk.

Yet she'd deserved it. Her lame excuse about pictures of Art and Andrea still burned him up. Ophelia wasn't that dumb. She wouldn't risk being arrested, risk her life even, when she was 99 percent sure the blackmailer was dead. For some foolish reason, he had expected her to tell him the truth. He was an idiot to think he knew the first thing about Ophelia Beliveau. Or about his sister or anyone else, for that matter.

He turned into his lengthy overgrown driveway, the bushes trimmed barely enough so he could pass without scratching the Mercedes, and pulled up with a curse next to an old Toyota that for sure didn't belong there. Letting himself into the house, he found his little sister curled up on the futon bed in the living room in her T-shirt and undies, with Daisy snoring on one side and Belle sprawled on the other.
Shit,
he thought,
I don't have time for this.
He took off his shoes and tried tiptoeing to the stairs, but Artemisia had never been a sound sleeper.

"Gideon, we have to talk."

He put his right foot back on the floor instead of the first stair, where it had been headed.
Patience. You're a patient man
,
remember
?
In some far-distant past.

He turned to face his sister. "Art, baby, I'm on a murder case. I don't have time for chitchat. Can it wait?"

Art's dark eyes, wide-open now, blazed at him in the low light from the end table. She swung her legs over Daisy's and sat up. "This is not chitchat, Gideon. I know you think I'm a silly little thing. I know you found another body and you're busy. I wouldn't have waited here all night if it wasn't important."

Gideon set his teeth. "Ophelia told you about the body? She had no call to go blabbing police business. Why can't you women keep your mouths shut?"

"You butthead!" Art yelled. "I know about the body because I was in the apartment, too."

"Unbelievable." What had he done to deserve this? "If anything else could go wrong--"

Art's face puckered and she began furiously to cry. "I was going to break into the apartment so I could search the store, and Ophelia tried to stop me, but then she heard someone coming and we went inside to hide. After you went to find out who was downstairs, she got me out of there. And then you called her stupid!"

Gideon ran a hand across his face and groaned. He nudged Daisy onto the floor and sat on the futon beside Art. "Christ, I'm even more of a jerk than I thought."

"Gideon, how could you?" Tears flowed down Art's cheeks. "We made a pact, Gideon. We promised each other. Doesn't that matter to you anymore?"

"Of course it does, baby. I screwed up big tonight in more ways than one. But I have to concentrate on the murder case for now. I can't afford to dwell on my own stupidity."

"Don't say that! Never, ever!" Art agitatedly looked around. "How come men never have any tissues?" She snuffled hard and wiped the tears with the back of her hand.

"Sorry," Gideon said. He put an arm around her. "Would you mind making coffee while I have a quick shower? Don't you have work this morning?"

Apparently that didn't matter, next to talking things out, so Gideon went slowly upstairs for a shower and thought about Art being there in the apartment and Ophelia pushing him away, trying to tell him something at just the moment the blockhead in the store had knocked over a lamp, and although he felt like a cad and a fool, he came downstairs a bit more cheerful to the welcoming aromas of coffee and bacon.